This is a well presented game. The art work is rich and clear and gives an experience of almost overflowing throughout the book. Most of the art consists of old photographs and drawings such as adverts and announcements from the era itself and this creates a sense of immersion in the material when reading it.

The 2D10 rules system is unified and homogenous. However I wouldn’t describe the game as rules light There is easily enough to call it moderately heavy. Combat is quite deadly and a nice twist is in being able to injury and disable adversaries if they fail resistance rolls when injured. The rules promote heroic action and the excitement of adventure in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Skills are resolved in the same way as combat rolling by having to 20 or more on 2D10 + modifiers, which are the characters skill score + any situational modifiers.

The sample adventure runs well and all of the relevant tables are reproduced at the back of the book for ease of reference. So get in your Sopwith Camel, fly over dense jungle and find lost temple ruins, filled with mad cultists, poisonous snakes and gleaming treasure. It’s all here. Heroes of the Pulp Age is a Very very good game.

Galaxy Prime is a simple yet well written Sci Fi. It has a plethora of races to choose from. Character generation is a point allocation system although a dice roll alternative is offered. It only uses three attributes, which keeps the characters easy to calculate, however a large number of derived secondary characteristics allow the characters a sense of depth.

Combat is a simple percentile system while skill calculation uses attributes added together or multiplied a number of times and sometimes with a bonus added. These in turn increase by spending charisma points, which work like development points and are accumulated through play.

Overall it’s a good game. It plays well. The book is well presented and an easy read. It does however have a couple of quirks such as a couple of pictures are missing from the creature listing and occasionally some of the information tables could do with a more explanation. But these are minor quibbles to a solid system. 4 Stars

I disagree with Gary's assessment. This game is awesome. The mechanics are so easy and intuitive, you can tell that it has been play-tested extensively. And you can play it over and over again because there are so many choices of characters you can play. Gary correctly points out that there are many similarities to Star Wars. If you read the author's description, he started writing this RPG before there ever was a Star Wars RPG! And let me tell you as someone who has played both, this one is better. Primarily, I would say because you have more room for imagination in this universe. You don't have to play within George Lucas' fantasy world -- you can make your own. Sure, the book itself has some idiosyncrasies but it's like buying a 1st edition Gary Gygax...this one is going to be a cult classic!

Galaxy Prime seems very promising, including among other selling points 36 (!) playable races. That's really why I bought the product. Then you get to those races, and your worst fears are confirmed: yep, they are anthropomorphic Earth animals. There's your bear alien, your turtle alien, your bird alien (you want an owl or a cardinal?), several types of lizard and insect aliens, and one guy that kinda looks like Wolverine. There are no humans, as the game is set in Galaxy Prime, which is apparently not this galaxy. Some of the species are given no illustrations and some have no descriptions.

This might have been forgivable, had the rationale behind the evolutions of these species been explained, or their societies and cultures developed in great and non-cliched detail. But no. Each species is given about a paragraph of description (at most), and then game stats. And the descriptions are no great shakes: warrior races, peaceful races, commerice-obsessed aliens, etc. The whole game is a mess of sci-fi cliches.

But ok, so writing a sci-fi game is partly the process of deciding what sci-fi tropes you want to use and hopefully make your own. So you keep reading GP. Then you come to the Kinet, "the latent energies circulating throughout the universe and those who are skilled in its use'." They didn't, did they? Yes, they did:

"This new coven came to be known as the Neuroth, those who chose to use their abilities in tyrannical ways and for personal gain. Those who remained loyal to the original teachings retained the moniker Kineticists."

It's the Force, complete with Light and Dark sides, Jedi and Sith. At this point, I had to stop reading GP.

The game mechanics are functional and percentile-based, no problem there. But the concepts of the game are just too thin and/or cliched for the taste of this reviwer. If none of this bothers you, and you want to play a Force-wielding grizzly bear, buy Galaxy Prime.